Kukla's Korner Hockey

It was nearly 12 years ago when New Jersey Devils owner Dr. John McMullen, who was one of the smartest men ever to own a major league sports franchise, was trying to explain his decision to stay in New Jersey after being offered a deal to move the 1995 Stanley Cup Champions to Nashville, Tennessee….
McMullen never said anything derogatory about Nashville but it was clear from his tone that he didn’t think a National Hockey League franchise in Music City could work and that was before Mayor Phil Bredesen enticed Houston Oilers owner Bud Adams to move his NFL team to the city.
But he made one prediction. Cities would start paying owners cash to keep teams within their boundaries. McMullen was a prophet. His words came to pass within two years….
Freeman’s group wants the city to give them about $3 million annually to help minimize financial losses incurred by the team. The group also wants to take over full responsibility for incentives to improve the Nashville arena’s financial performance and it also wants the city to guarantee that there will be 14,000 paid admissions for each Predators home game so that the ownership group does not lose NHL revenue sharing.
While Freeman and his group’s demands seems a bit outrageous, Freeman and his group are not reinventing the wheel. All they are doing is copying what Tom Benson did in New Orleans and what Alex Spanos accomplished in San Diego.

The updated Lightning logo is a modernization of the team’s classic lightning bolt with the contrast of black surrounding the bolt and the insertion of blue into the bolt’s interior to empower the logo’s impact. A new, custom typeface with angled letters is used for “TAMPA BAY”, while “LIGHTNING” has been dropped from the logo. These changes were made to provide a bold and unified icon.

Marc Staal was not about to let that puck past him. Scrimmage or no scrimmage.
Patrick Sharp tries to cut hard only to be poke checked by the six-foot-four defenceman, who sends an outlet pass the other way that results in one of many goals in this three-on-three pick-up game.
Before an audience of two or three at a sleepy summer morning at Fort William First Nation Arena, a group of professional players from Thunder Bay are skating hard drills and scrimmages at the Core Hockey Camp in preparation for the upcoming season – working out whatever kinks before leaving town for their respective leagues and cities.
Staal is definitely working toward something bigger. His very possible National Hockey League debut in October.

What’s incredibly surprising is the fact there hasn’t been a bona fide leak on what the new design is all about. “It’s been a huge challenge,” Zimmerman says. “So many people watch everything we do. It’s almost impossible to manage our own news.” (Try as they do.)
So how’s this sweater thing been kept a secret? Were there threats of immediate dismissal among the staff or, worse, suggestions of relocation to the farm club in Manitoba? Were managers of sporting goods stores in danger of losing their Canucks’ inventory? Was Tiger Williams brought out of hibernation to deal with any potential snitches?

When the NHL held its entry draft at the Saddledome back in the summer of 2000, Brent Krahn’s dreams were all coming true.
With a huge crowd of Flames supporters on hand to roar their approval, Krahn was called to the podium by the host Calgary club with the ninth overall selection.
It seemed a matter of time before the then-Calgary Hitmen netminder was about to hear those cheers regularly.
Turns out, more like a matter of a long time….
As it stands now, the Flames brain trust appears willing to give one of the team’s prospects the chance to serve as backup goalie to star netminder Miikka Kiprusoff.
Likely, it’ll mean playing only about a dozen games through the season seeing as Kiprusoff is such a workhorse, so the job description also entails plenty of work in practice and morning skates and learning the trade at the next level.

A Predators team that had already lost a number of its top offensive performers from last season has suffered another blow.
Right wing Steve Sullivan underwent a second offseason back surgery on Thursday and is expected to be out of action for three months. The Predators hope he’ll return in early December and miss only the first quarter of the season.

No, they’ve never had a player like Luongo, so when he says in his first interview in nearly two months that he believes the Canucks can win the Stanley Cup, then maybe they can.
“Yes, we can,” Luongo says from Montreal. “We were close last year. Injuries in the playoffs hurt us a lot. Another year together, experience wise, I can only see this team moving forward. We have the elements there to produce goals. We’ll have to step up to get to the next level, but the elements are there.
“For me, the ultimate goal now is a Stanley Cup and for the rest of my career, that’s going to be my goal. There’s nothing else I’m driving for except for that. The individual awards, that’s not something I play for. If it happens, great, but for me, right now, the goal is to try to win the Cup.”

One of Morris County’s most prestigious schools received a visit from a Randolph-native and his best friend Friday.
The school: Delbarton.
The man: George Parros, former Delbarton hockey star and current NHL player.
The best friend: Lord Stanley’s Cup.
Parros, who won the Stanley Cup this season with the Anaheim Ducks, arrived at 9 a.m. cradling the trophy. For two hours, the self-professed “fighter” acted more like a lover, signing autographs and posing for countless photographs.

Have you been wondering which NHL club has the best logo? NHL Tournament of Logos is on a mission to find out. They are pitting nickname against nickname, logo against logo with the lone goal of determining the champion. And now you can vote!

Several NHL officials said today that the game between the Penguins and Sabres on Jan. 1, 2008 will be played at Ralph Wilson Stadium, home of the NFL’s Bills. In a made-for-television event—the game will air nationally on NBC—the Penguins and Sabres will skate on an outdoor rink in front of what the NHL hopes will prove the largest audience ever to watch an NHL game in the United States.
Neither the league nor NBC would officially confirm the tentatively titled “Ice Bowl,” which is scheduled to be played at 1 p.m.